The Orphan Brigade: The Kentucky Confederates Who Couldn't Go Home

by Davis, William C.

  Buckner arrived first, reaching Bowling Green at 10 A.M. Half an hour later Colonel Hawes brought the remainder of the command, and later in the day some regiments of Tennessee troops arrived from Nashville. The whole movement took place without opposition. Now was the time for the formalities. Buckner sent a telegram to Governor Magoffin informing him of his action, and declaring that it was only a “defensive measure.” Then Buckner printed for circulation a broadside dated the day before. Addressed “To the People of Kentucky,” it reaffirmed that the Confederates were acting only on the defensive, and launched into the history of federal crimes against the state. “Men of Kentucky!” he said, “are we indeed slaves, that we are thus to be dragged in chains at the feet of despotic power?” Of course not. “Let us rise, freemen of Kentucky, and show that we are worthy of our sires.” He was entering the lists for freedom, he said. Now he called upon them to “Join with me in expelling from our firesides the armies which an insane despotism sends amongst us to subjugate us to the iron rule of Puritanical New England.” On the very day of occupying Kentucky, the renewed recruiting of her sons began.18

  THREE

  “They Are All Gentlemen”

  JOHN S. JACKMAN walked to the Bardstown depot to get the daily Louisville newspaper. He chanced to meet there an old friend who, without prior discussion on the subject, said, “Let us go to Bloomfield to-night and join the party going through to Dixie.” “I had scarcely thought of such a thing before,” Jackman recalled, but instantly his mind was decided. “All right,” he said, and so cast his fortunes with the Confederacy. Since Buckner’s entry into the state, hundreds of young Kentucky men formed this same resolve, though presumably upon a little more reflection. All of them made their way toward Bowling Green eventually, though not without mishap and adventure on the way.

  Jackman went home and changed clothes, trying to slip out of the house without his parents noticing. Failing in that, he lied, telling them he would be back in a few days. With no baggage but a shawl, he mounted his horse, joined his friend and four others, and rode into the night. “Not one in the party was able to support a whisker, nor a visible mustache; neither was there a well-defined political idea in the crowd.” They were simply off for adventure. One of their number, standing six feet, seven inches tall, they elected their “captain,” and then they followed him into the moonlight. As they approached Bloomfield the challenge “Who comes there?” rang out. The “captain” replied that they were “Recruits for the Rebel army.” The voice commanded them to halt, and soon a soldier came into view bran dishing a rifle and a bayonet. Satisfied of the strangers’ intentions, the Confederate sent them to the main camp, where they were challenged yet again, this time with cocked gun. “I thought this extreme vigilence,” wrote Jackman. Soon Captain John C. Wickliffe brought them into camp where a fire burned and the boys exchanged excited stories with other friends who preceded them. Weary from the ride, however, they soon retired, John Jackman rolling himself in his shawl and pillowing his head on the gnarled root of an old beech tree. “I lay a moment watching the ‘lamps of heaven’ as they twinkled through the foliage of the old tree, my thoughts busy contemplating the sublimeness of soldiering.” Then it was off to sleep.

  He awoke the next morning with rain spattering his face. After a breakfast of cornbread and fat bacon broiled at the end of a stick, he explored this new place, called Camp Charity. The men enjoyed good clothing and shelter, and excellent food by later standards. He found about three hundred men in camp, among them the Lexington Rifles of Captain John H. Morgan, who was in overall charge of the recruits here assembled. Soon it was time to exchange his civilian clothing for a jacket of Confederate gray, Jackman noting with perverse pleasure that the largest trousers available extended little below the knees of his outsized “captain” of the day before, while his arms from the elbows down protruded beyond the jacket sleeves.

  With the uniform came a rifle with a gleaming bayonet, and that night Jackman went on guard in a dense wood behind the camp. “How proud I felt as I paced to and fro on my beat,” he wrote, longing for an opportunity to issue the same stentorian challenge that he encountered just the night before. After midnight he heard two men approaching and crouched in hiding, hoping they would wander across the line of his beat. They did, and at once came Jackman’s prideful “Halt.” The men begged to be passed into the camp but, not to be done out of his grand moment, the guard refused, bawling into the night, “Corporal of the guard, post No. 8.” “Even the owls stopped hooting,” Jackman discovered, “either through respect, or being terror-stricken.” When the swearing corporal arrived, the strangers were brought into camp, and Johnny Jackman returned to his solitary beat, entirely satisfied with the glorious life of a soldier.

  On the afternoon of September 28, the party, now 400 strong, left to join Buckner. The infantry took the lead, the cavalry acting as rear guard, while Morgan rode at the front of the column. The very first day out Jackman was rudely disenchanted. Almost the entire party turned into a panicked, disorganized mob when it was thought there were armed Federals or Home Guard in their front. Briefly he toyed with taking “French leave,” abandoning the column, but thought better of it after a night’s rest. Still, the novelty and romance faded fast. The next night they were so tired that one man fell asleep on a pile of rails that some time before had been a campfire. He awoke in the morning to find his coat singed to cinders. The next day brought them to the L&N’s Green River crossing near Munfordville, and here they found Hawes’s 2d Kentucky, which Buckner had sent forward to guard the bridge. The veterans welcomed the recruits with band music and the salute of cannon—Byrne’s six-pounders. Amid the huzzas and the strains of “Dixie,” Jackman and his compatriots marched into camp and collapsed. They had walked nearly one hundred miles in the preceding thirty-six hours.

  The next two days in camp took much of the remainder of romance out of soldiering. The “veterans” of the 2d Kentucky looked to Jackman “very ragged and dirty.” He was surprised at how quickly bright, gay uniforms became tattered and dingy. The men of the 2d guyed and teased the “tenderfeet,” but still Jackman and the 400 decided to enter the service formally. Morgan took his Lexington Rifles toward Bowling Green to enlist as cavalry, while the others were sworn into service by Major James Hewitt, their term three years. The veterans looked on, jeering “sold to the Dutch, sold to the Dutch” as Jackman took his oath. Finally, on the evening of October 5, the new companies entrained for Bowling Green. It was past dark when they arrived, seeing before them hundreds of campfires in the suburbs of the town. Jackman thought “the world was there encamped.” Now, at last, he was ready for war in an army that would whip the Yankees.1

  Johnny Jackman’s was only one of hundreds of stories told by the men flocking to Bowling Green. Buckner’s call to arms was not ignored in the first weeks after his march into the state. The very day they took Bowling Green, he sent Hawes and the 2d Kentucky, with Byrne’s battery, forward to the Green River, both to cover the bridge as well as to “rally around your command as strong a force of Kentuckians as possible.” He empowered Hawes to muster armed companies into the service for three years, and further to communicate with sympathizers in the interior of the state to aid in their recruiting. Buckner authorized special recruiting agents to go to Lexington and elsewhere in the Bluegrass to raise companies, placing Major Alexander Cassady in charge of enlisting men to the banner. They came in large numbers: 400 on September 19, 500 more six days later. Enlistment stations burgeoned at places like Cave City and Russellville, and the young “Southrons” flocked to them singly and in informal companies.2

  They presented a motley aspect, these ardent Kentuckians, but most of the townspeople loved them. At Russellville the entire town, all southern in sympathy, turned out as the recruits entered, the townspeople bringing the best delicacies their larders could offer. Yet some were less than overwhelmed. “What a sad, beaten-down sight awaited our eyes,” wrote a lady passing through town
. “They, in their tatters, partly barefooted, gave more the effect of a robber band than the corps of trained soldiers.” In the public square the town’s society ladies mixed with those of lesser reputation in preparing meals for the volunteers and mending their clothes. Amid blazing campfires and the comings and goings of couriers, officers mingled with civilians, standing aside as wagons bearing the sick passed by, stepping out to greet those who straggled in the last miles. A band played “Dixie,” and everyone in the square stopped to join in singing. It was a joyful yet sober occasion, and symbolic. These men were leaving everything behind. Their state did not support them, and in many cases neither did their families. They looked hungry. Many were ailing, already homesick. “Their whole outward appearance was sad, self-sufficient and serious,” recalled a witness. It was of these men that Buckner hoped to build his regiments. And in time a brigade.3

  Morgan’s Lexington Rifles took active service first, though they would not be mustered officially into the service until November 7. The dashing young captain had quite an adventure just reaching Bowling Green. Indeed, he nearly precipitated an armed confrontation as far back as August 20, when he and his men determined to capture a shipment of “Lincoln guns” coming to Lexington for federal recruits. Only the intervention of John C. Breckinridge, still trying to preserve the neutral peace, prevented Morgan from fighting for the guns.

  One month later to the day Morgan confided to his most trusted and reliable men that he would take them and their state-owned arms to the Confederates. They loaded their weapons in two wagons and, with seventeen men behind him, Morgan rode South. Behind him he had several of his men making a great noise in the Lexington Rifles’ armory to fool Union men into thinking the entire command was there. The next morning, the weapons safely out of town, Morgan returned to Lexington and gathered the rest of his men. That day the Union men decided to disarm the Lexington Rifles’ armory and were not a little surprised to find it empty. The ensuing debate eventually resulted in shooting, and by nightfall Morgan and his followers were on their way to the rendezvous near Bloomfield. From there, with Jackman and several hundred others in tow, he made his way to the camps at Green River. Immediately upon arrival, Morgan was attached to the regiment then forming under his uncle, Thomas Hunt, and began at once to operate mounted patrols. For months he and his small band of mounted scouts forayed deep into the state’s interior, sometimes even in the guise of federal soldiers. Four and five times a week he went on his missions, sometimes riding over sixty miles in twenty hours or less. It was exciting duty, and hazardous in its way, suiting exactly the temperament of this romantic on horseback. A fellow Kentuckian at this time described Morgan as being of “a mild and unassuming demeanor, gentle and affable in his manners, handsome in person, and possessed of all that polish of address which is supposed to best qualify men for the drawing-room and parlor.” Yet “no enterprise, however dangerous, no reconnoissance, however tiresome and wearying, could daunt his spirits or deter him from his purpose.” Here was the beau sabreur ideal.4

  As for his men, they were of the same stripe as all Kentucky soldiers—hard-fighting, independent, and a bit wild. His men were known to “requisition” blankets and other odd items from the local citizens regardless of political persuasion, sometimes even taking things of no real consequence. One local complained to Morgan that his men stole his thermometer. Embarrassed, Morgan began consigning offenders to the guardhouse, which quelled the problem until the case of the “coffee boiler.” One “mess,” or group of about a dozen men who cooked and ate together, had plenty of coffee but nothing but an open kettle in which to boil it. This allowed most of the flavor to escape in the steam. Tinware was so scarce that a good pot or “boiler” could not be purchased. Worse, perverse Fate had set a fine brightly polished coffee boiler on a farmer’s workbench next to his smokehouse, and within sight of camp. “No doubt the demon of temptation was urged on by the ease with which the covetted article might be captured,” lamented one of the mess. It was easy enough to purloin the treasure, but how to keep the farmer from thinking the soldiers had done the deed? “The fear of being caught deterred us for several days,” he recalled, but Kentuckians were nothing if not innovative. They had dug several holes in the clay near their tents to act as water retainers. Unused now, they were filled with leaves. The boiler, someone suggested, could be hidden in one of these until the inevitable camp search was completed.

  On the appointed night, one of them, made a “coffee-boiler scout,” successfully captured the prize in the dark, and immediately buried it in a hole. Then for over a week the men kept quiet, awaiting the search. It never came. Eventually the mess brought forth their treasure from the hole and examined it for the first time in the light. The bottom was burned out. It was absolutely useless. Now the men had another problem. Not only did they have to keep the theft a secret from their superiors, but also from their fellow soldiers, who would jeer them mercilessly. It was not to be. Even while they tried hastily to reinter the utensil, the word spread through camp. Soon and thereafter they were known as the “Coffee-boiler Rangers.”5

  Morgan was not the only cavalry forming in and about Bowling Green. While he patrolled to the north, a genuine mounted regiment, to be designated the 1st Kentucky Cavalry, was aborning. Theirs was a rigid discipline. Company drill in the morning, regimental drill in the afternoon, brigade drill on Friday, inspection on Saturday, and leisure hours occupied with saber drill and fatigue and guard duty. To any onlooker it was obvious that this regiment was in the hands of a professional. Those hands happened to belong to the brother-in-law of the President of the United States, Colonel Benjamin Hardin Helm.

  He was just barely thirty years old, the son of Governor John Helm of Kentucky, and connected with one of the oldest and most prominent families of the Bluegrass. A cadet at Kentucky Military Institute, he obtained an appointment to the U. S. Military Academy at West Point and graduated ninth in his class in 1851. He served only a year in the cavalry before resigning due to ill health, and thereafter practiced law in partnership with Martin H. Cofer, served a term in the legislature, and then took his place with Buckner in organizing the State Guard. In April 1861 President Lincoln offered Helm a position as paymaster in the United States Army with the rank of major. It was a hard decision for Helm. Five years before he had married Emily Todd, sister of Mary Todd Lincoln. Helm and Lincoln were close, dear friends. Through the maze of conflicting loyalties, however, he saw the way he must take. To his brother-in-law he said no. Then, with an endorsement from Magoffin that claimed “some of the best blood of Ky. flows in his veins,” Helm offered his services to the Confederacy. On October 19, 1861, he received his commission as colonel and orders to organize the 1st Kentucky Cavalry.6

  While these horsemen trained at Bowling Green, the infantry regiments continued forming. With the 2d, 3d, and 4th regiments organized, the next in line was the 5th Kentucky, or so it would seem. In fact, without planning to, the Confederacy shortly found itself blessed with two 5th Kentucky infantries.

  On October 1 Thomas Hunt surveyed the unorganized companies in and around Bowling Green, and six days later, with a colonel’s commission in his pocket, he started forming his regiment. There were four companies in camp, among them the newly arrived Bloomfield contingent and the still-weary John Jackman. With them, Hunt established Camp Warren, created a camp guard, acquired a kettle drum and a Professor François Gevers to play it, and began the drill. The men stayed in wall tents with good wooden floors, seven men to the tent and one blanket among them. “The boards at first seemed pretty hard sleeping,” wrote Johnny Green, “but it was not long before we looked back upon these comforts as princely luxuries.” One luxury none of them recalled fondly, however, was Hunt’s order to pull up all the ragweed within the camp limits. “Actual soldiering is so vastly different from ideal soldiering,” lamented Jackman.

  Hunt shortly relocated his camp to Russellville, where another three companies joined, as well as severa
l more drums. At reveille each morning the field band marched through the streets of town. “The noise was sufficient to wake the Seven Sleepers,” thought Jackman, but the men drilled the better for it. Better drilled, perhaps, but not entirely happy. For now they slept on the ground, and it was wet. The “Citizen Guards” of Louisville, Johnny Green’s company, had enjoyed quite some distinction at Bowling Green for the luxury of their habitations. A jealous Johnny Jackman recalled, “They had wall tents scalloped and fringed and … they even had up lace curtains.” There had been rugs on the wooden floors, and even a dresser or two. But when the move to Russellville came, Hunt emphatically denied transportation to carry all the boards for the tent floors. “Then the ‘cussing’ began,” wrote Jackman. It “volleyed and thundered” all through the company. One of the “ringleaders” in the profanity was young Johnny Green. He, too, was beginning to find soldiering a bit less fun than he expected.7

  By late November Hunt returned his men to Bowling Green. It was said that he knew every man in his command by name, and as well an estimate of each man’s pluck and stamina. It is not surprising, for this colonel took unusual care to look after his men. The last day’s march into Bowling Green was in mud and pouring rain. Drenched, the men foraged for straw to spread beneath their tents. When Johnny Green returned to his tent he sank down on the ground and could not rise the next morning. He had measles. Hunt sent him to the hospital in town, and personally accompanied him to assure the very best accommodation and treatment.

  Hunt’s regiment did not muster regulation strength yet, but he still entered them formally into service. From the War Department in Richmond, Virginia, came orders designating his command the 5th Kentucky Infantry temporarily, pending enlistment of the remainder needed to fill the regiment. But then arose a problem. Some days before, on November 14, another regiment of Kentuckians reached regulation size and formally organized. Since the War Department’s designation for Hunt’s command was only an interim measure, awaiting completion of his regiment, it was now deemed proper that this new regiment should have the permanent appellation of 5th Kentucky. By the time Hunt was up to strength the next available number was 9th Kentucky but, for unknown reasons, Hunt did not receive that order for a full year. Thus, until October 1862, there were two Confederate regiments of infantry called the 5th Kentucky.8